Wikipedia article:

Map showing all locations mentioned on Wikipedia article:

This article is about the politician, for the British tank
named for him, see Light Tank Mk
VIII

Harry Lloyd Hopkins (August 17, 1890 – January 29,
1946) was one of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt's closest advisers. He was one of the
architects of the New Deal, especially the
relief programs of the Works Progress Administration
(WPA), which he directed and built into the largest employer in the
country. In World War II he was
Roosevelt's chief diplomatic advisor and troubleshooter and was a
key policy maker in the $50 billion Lend
Lease program that sent aid to the allies.

Early life

Harry
Hopkins was born at 512 Tenth Street in Sioux City, Iowa, the fourth child of four sons and one daughter of
David Aldona and Anna (née Pickett) Hopkins.His
father, born in Bangor,
Maine, ran a harness shop, after an erratic career as a
salesman, prospector, storekeeper and bowling-alley operator; but
his real passion was bowling, and he eventually returned to it as a
business.Anna Hopkins, born in Hamilton,
Ontario, had moved at an early age to Vermillion,
South Dakota, where she married David. She was deeply
religious and active in the affairs of the Methodist church. Shortly after Harry was born, the family
moved successively to Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Kearney and Hastings,
Nebraska.They spent two years in Chicago, and finally
settled in Grinnell,
Iowa.

Social and public health work

In 1915, New York City Mayor John
Purroy Mitchel appointed Hopkins executive secretary of the
Bureau of Child Welfare which administered pensions to mothers with
dependent children.

Hopkins at first opposed America's entrance into World War I, but when war was declared in 1917
he supported it enthusiastically. He was rejected for the draft
because of a bad eye. Hopkins moved to New
Orleans where he worked for the American Red Cross as director of
Civilian Relief, Gulf Division.Eventually, the Gulf
Division of the Red Cross merged with the Southwestern Division and
Hopkins, headquartered now in Atlanta, was
appointed general manager in 1921. Hopkins helped draft a
charter for the American Association of Social Workers (AASW) and
was elected its president in 1923.

In 1922, Hopkins returned to New York City where the AICP was
involved with the Milbank Memorial
Fund and the State Charities Aid Association in running three
health demonstrations in New York State. Hopkins became manager of
the Bellevue-Yorkville health project and assistant director of the
AICP. In mid-1924 he became executive director of the New York
Tuberculosis Association. During his
tenure, the agency grew enormously and absorbed the New York Heart Association.

In 1931, New York Governor Franklin D.Roosevelt named R.H.Macy's department
store president Jesse Straus as president of the Temporary
Emergency Relief Administration (TERA). Straus named
Hopkins, then unknown to Roosevelt, as TERA's executive director.
His efficient administration of the initial $20 million outlay to
the agency gained Roosevelt's attention, and in 1932, he promoted
Hopkins to the presidency of the agency. Hopkins and Eleanor Roosevelt began a long friendship,
which strengthened his role in relief programs.

New Deal

In March 1933, Roosevelt summoned Hopkins to Washington as federal
relief administrator. Convinced that paid work was psychologically
more valuable than cash handouts (the "dole"), Hopkins sought to
continue and expand New York State's work-relief programs, the
Temporary Emergency Relief Administration. He supervised the
Federal
Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA),
and the Works Progress
Administration (WPA). Over 90% of the people employed by the
Hopkins programs were unemployed or on relief. He feuded with
Harold Ickes, who ran a rival
program the PWA which also created jobs but did
not require applicants be unemployed or on relief.

Although Hopkins denied saying "We
will tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect,"
conservative critics thought the slogan fit the New Deal very
well

FERA, the largest program from 1933-35, involved giving money to
localities to operate work relief projects to employ those on
direct relief. CWA was similar, but did not require workers to be
on relief in order to receive a government sponsored job. In less
than four months, the Civil Works Administration hired four million
people, and during its five-months of operation, the CWA built and
repaired 200 swimming pools, 3,700 playgrounds, 40,000 schools, of
road, and 12 million feet of sewer pipe.

The Works Progress Administration, which followed the CWA, employed
8.5 million people in its seven-year history, working on 1.4
million projects, including the building or repair of 103 golf
courses, 1,000 airports, 2,500 hospitals, 2,500 sports stadiums,
3,900 schools, 8,192 parks, 12,800 playgrounds, 124,031 bridges,
125,110 public buildings, and of highways and roads. The WPA
operated on its own, and selected projects with the cooperation of
local and state government but operated them with its own staff and
budget. Hopkins started programs for youth (National Youth Administration)
and for artists and writers (Federal One
Programs). He and Eleanor Roosevelt worked together to
publicize and defend New Deal relief programs. He was concerned
with rural areas but more and more focused on cities in the great
depression.

World War II

News photo of Hopkins departing for
Britain, January 1941

During the war years, Hopkins acted as Roosevelt's unofficial
emissary to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Roosevelt dispatched
Hopkins to assess Britain's determination and situation. Churchill
escorted Hopkins all over the United Kingdom, and converted him to
the British cause. At a small dinner party before he returned,
Hopkins rose to propose a toast. "I suppose you wish to know what I
am going to say to President Roosevelt on my return. Well I am
going to quote to you one verse from the Book of Books ... "Whither
thou goest, I will go and where thou lodgest I will lodge, thy
people shall be my people, and thy God my God." Hopkins became the
administrator of Lend Lease.

Hopkins
had a major voice in policy for the vast $50 billion Lend-Lease
program, especially regarding supplies, first for Britain and then
(upon the German invasion) the USSR.He went
to Moscow in July 1941
to make personal contact with Stalin.
Hopkins recommended, and the president accepted, the inclusion of
the Soviets in Lend-Lease. He then accompanied Churchill to the
Atlantic Conference. Hopkins
promoted an aggressive war against Germany and successfully urged
Roosevelt to use the Navy to protect convoys before the US entered
the war in December 1941. Roosevelt brought him along as advisor to
his meetings with Churchill at Cairo, Tehran, Casablanca in 1942-43, and
Yalta in 1945.He was a firm supporter of China, which
received Lend Lease aid for its military and air force.
Hopkins wielded more diplomatic power than the entire State
Department. Hopkins helped identify and sponsor numerous potential
leaders, including Dwight D.Eisenhower. He continued to
live in the White House and saw the president more often than any
other advisor. Although Hopkins' health was steadily
declining, Roosevelt sent him on additional trips to Europe in
1945; he attended the Yalta Conference in February 1945. He tried to resign after
Roosevelt died, but President Harry
S.Truman sent
him on one more mission to Moscow.

Relations with spies

Hopkins
was the top American official charged with dealing with Soviet officials
during World War II and spoke with many Russians, from middle ranks
to the very highest. He often explained to Stalin and other
top Soviets what Roosevelt was secretly planning in order to enlist
Soviet support for American objectives. As a major decision maker
in Lend Lease, he expedited the sending of as much war material as
possible to the Soviet Union, as Congress had ordered, in order to
end the war as fast as possible. As was common in totalitarian societies, Soviets who spoke to
Hopkins routinely reported the contact to the KGB, so Hopkins
is listed as a "source" of information for Moscow, which indeed was
his role. No one has ever identified any secrets that
Hopkins gave away that he should not have, or any decision in which
he distorted American priorities in order to help Communism.

"Harry Lloyd Hopkins". Dictionary of American Biography,
Supplement 4: 1946-1950. American Council of Learned
Societies, 1974.

World War II

Allen, R.G.D. "Mutual Aid between the U.S. and the British Empire, 1941—5", in Journal of
the Royal Statistical Society no. 109 #3, 1946. pp 243–77
online at www.jstor.org detailed statistical
data on Lend Lease